Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks • Hacker News Board

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#81

Post by lukeschlather » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 1:24 AM UTC

lordlicorice wrote: post #78

DanBC wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the artist wants money he should set up a donations account so I can pay him directly. I'm tired of these middlemen. The middlemen play an important role in some industries. Many people ask cstross why he doesn't have a donation link so that people who've read a pirate version of one of his books can pay him. He is very clear - he wants you to buy a book of his (any book) so that his publisher can get some of th…

> Books need to be written, edited, typeset, 'printed' / 'put into ebook format', distributed, etc. The author writes the book. Typesetting and "putting into ebook format" are a copy-and-paste affair, taking at most a day. Pirated books don't need to be printed or distributed.

>Typesetting and "putting into ebook format" are a copy-and-paste affair, taking at most a day.

Well, if you want it done poorly, sure. (And of course, you rightly avoided impugning the need for a good editor.)

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#82

Post by h89 » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 2:04 AM UTC

crusso wrote: post #63

vibrunazo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who is arguing that one should pay for every previous idea that a new idea is derived from? IP limits production to create artificial scarcity. No matter how you look at it, after you copyright or patent something. You are limiting what can be created in the world. > As a society, we discovered that rewarding producers adds to the useful aggregate more than just hoping that they'll add the same amount of content wi…

> You are limiting what can be created in the world. Not really true. You could say that IP limits some forms of use that could produce new creations. But that would ignore the fact that often IP is licensed, thus not preventing the creation of some content. Further, providing a reward for the creation of new IP dramatically increases the overall creation rate of what society considers to be "useful" IP. > No we did…

> That's just an ad hominem.

No it isn't....

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#83

Post by te_chris » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 2:23 AM UTC

How the hell does this warrant a patent? There seems to be nothing that is either novel or innovative about this particular "invention". Oh wow, unique codes as a way of limiting free participation, absolute genius. Somebody give this guy a Nobel and Tenure, oh wait...

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#84

Post by crusso » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 2:25 AM UTC

h89 wrote: post #82

crusso wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are limiting what can be created in the world. Not really true. You could say that IP limits some forms of use that could produce new creations. But that would ignore the fact that often IP is licensed, thus not preventing the creation of some content. Further, providing a reward for the creation of new IP dramatically increases the overall creation rate of what society considers to be "useful" IP. > No we did…

> That's just an ad hominem. No it isn't....

The value of IP laws doesn't depend upon the (fabricated) motivations of those who created it.

So, yeah, it is an ad hominem.

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#85

Post by John_F_Miller » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 2:50 AM UTC

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

Richard Stallman's "The Right to Read"

I find myself wanting to post this link more and more frequently these days.

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#86

Post by darwinGod » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 2:57 AM UTC

runn1ng wrote: post #75

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html Richard Stallman, Right to Read, 1997. It's really chilling to read this story today, when half of it is already truth.

I was thinking this should have been the topmost comment on this story- Surprised that not many people here seem to have read this,for if they had- this 'story' should have been the first thing they commented on.

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#87

Post by aangjie » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 3:06 AM UTC

lordlicorice wrote: post #78

DanBC wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the artist wants money he should set up a donations account so I can pay him directly. I'm tired of these middlemen. The middlemen play an important role in some industries. Many people ask cstross why he doesn't have a donation link so that people who've read a pirate version of one of his books can pay him. He is very clear - he wants you to buy a book of his (any book) so that his publisher can get some of th…

> Books need to be written, edited, typeset, 'printed' / 'put into ebook format', distributed, etc. The author writes the book. Typesetting and "putting into ebook format" are a copy-and-paste affair, taking at most a day. Pirated books don't need to be printed or distributed.

>Typesetting and "putting into ebook format" are a copy-and-paste affair, taking at most a day. I suggest you try doing it for someone else's work. Try signing up to be an editor at one of the story-writing sites. It's not a copy-and-paste affair. And doing it well requires non-trivial amount of attention and time.

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#88

Post by chris_wot » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 3:07 AM UTC

antonb2011 wrote: post #79

IvoDankolov wrote: post #9

No access code means a lower grade, all in the best interests of science. I ... no. I can't even... I'm sorry, but I find it very hard to summon an inkling of sympathy for the publishers' plea against piracy when I see measures like that. When I failed calculus because I didn't prove a theorem the way it was in the lecture notes and then was insane enough to argue the point, I thought it was pretty stupid. Here, I do…

Don't worry about it, man. He can patent it all he wants, but thing is not gonna fly. It's called a "tie-in sale", and the United States Anti-Trust law prohibits it. McDonald's tried this trick a long time ago with their franchise owners in order to better account for how much they sold, by forcing them to buy paper cups and other supplies directly from Corporate (i.e. prohibiting third party suppliers). I think it g…

In Australia it's called "restraint of trade" and is totally illegal. eBay tried to do something similar by forcing users to use PayPal and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) struck it down.

This patent might work in areas of the world that don't have much consumer protection, but they will NOT work in areas of the world that care about anti-competitive practices.

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#89

Post by impendia » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 3:09 AM UTC

IvoDankolov wrote: post #9

No access code means a lower grade, all in the best interests of science. I ... no. I can't even... I'm sorry, but I find it very hard to summon an inkling of sympathy for the publishers' plea against piracy when I see measures like that. When I failed calculus because I didn't prove a theorem the way it was in the lecture notes and then was insane enough to argue the point, I thought it was pretty stupid. Here, I do…

>I'm sorry, but I find it very hard to summon an inkling of sympathy for the publishers' plea against piracy when I see measures like that.

In addition to heartily endorsing planetguy's comment (as a university professor), I might point out that this guy doesn't speak for the publishing industry either.

He is just some random asshole who managed to game the patent system.

Re: Anti-Piracy Patent Aims to Stop Students from Sharing Textbooks

#90

Post by Rhino55 » Mon, Jun 11, 2012, 3:10 AM UTC

Peter Thiel is grinning right now. This is exactly the sort of hare-brained idea that gets taken seriously when an industry starts to die. BTW go here for lots of free books. Slow but good selection. en.bookfi.org.